2019 PEN/Hemingway Winner -Tommy Orange

2019 PEN/ Hemingway Award

Tommy Orange, There, There (Alfred A Knopf)

Orange’s There There illuminates the lives of urban Native Americans, and explores their struggles with identity and authenticity.

This year’s judges—authors Cristina Garcia, Dinaw Mengestu, and Scott Simon—called There There a “devastatingly beautiful novel, as acutely attuned to our current cultural and political condition as it is to the indelible legacy of violence that brought us here.” The judges added that “The breadth and scope of this novel are matched only by the fierce and relentless intelligence that Orange brings to his characters, who despite tragedy, heartbreak and loss, reside in a remarkable world of hard-earned grace.”

“Orange’s novel is striking in its range and depth, and it is exceptional for a debut novel to disrupt and expand the landscape of American fiction the way that There There has,” said Literary Awards Program Director Nadxieli Nieto. “It is exactly this kind of groundbreaking work that the PEN/ Hemingway Award honors.”

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The Ernest Hemingway Foundation was established in 1965 by Mary Hemingway, Ernest’s widow, “for the purposes of awakening, sustaining an interest in, promoting, fostering, stimulating, supporting, improving and developing literature and all forms of literary composition and expression.”